applies. For example, 80 per cent of stock comes from 20 per cent
of suppliers, 80 per cent of sales come from 20 per cent of sales
staff. It is also sometimes argued that 20 per cent of an organiza-
tion’s staff will produce 80 per cent of the problems, but it works
the other way round, ie another 20 per cent of staff will produce
80 per cent of added value. The principle has also been applied to
the process of management, suggesting that people should iden-
tify the 20 per cent of the important things they do during a day
and concentrate more on these than on the remaining 80 per cent.
The problem is that of identifying the vital 20 per cent and
Pareto charts are used for this purpose. They illustrate the rela-
tive importance of problems by showing their frequency or size
in a descending bar graph as illustrated in Figure 6.2. They are
constructed by listing the problems and then assessing how
significant they are in relation to one another.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming gets a group to generate as many ideas as possible
without pausing to evaluate them. The rationale for the process
How to Achieve Continuous Improvement 37Figure 6.1 Cause-and-effect diagramcustomer
complaintfacilitiesstaffskillsrestaurantchoiceskillskitchenattitudequality
trainingstoragematerialscooking